


Coyote's Child

by DebraHicks



Category: War of the Worlds (TV 1988)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DebraHicks/pseuds/DebraHicks
Summary: The war is over.  The aliens defeated.  Debi remembers the cost of the victory.Published in Green Floating Weirdness #10 5/1/1994Winner Fan Q 1995 Best WOW
Kudos: 4





	Coyote's Child

The small car eased to a stop in front of what was left of the metal gates. Kincaid twisted sideways, sliding his bad leg out and using his good one to push up. As he stood, his companion smiled sympathetically across the cars roof but remained silent. He reached for the solar re-charge panels; his gun swung against the car with a clang. 

"I won't be long, John," she said quietly. 

"Sure." As she started to move away he called, "Debi." He handed her a celluar unit. "Just in case." 

Giving him a pat on the arm she shifted the machine pistol to a better position at her waist, hooked the unit next to it. Kincaid watched her disappear around the bushes toward the ruins. This was their third trip here in twenty years and the first time she'd made the walk alone. He hadn't asked if she wanted company. 

The three graves, not surprisingly, needed tending. The local underground had volunteered to care for the site but everyone had been too busy the last few months. She had issued orders that the fourth grave was never to be touched. 

She smiled vaguely. There was already talk among the reforming government of putting up a monument to the Blackwood Team. She could image how well that would have gone over with them. 

"Don't worry," she promised four spirits. "I won't let them." 

Kneeling in the wet spring grass she began to pull the weeds away from the first marker. A single stone from the ruins behind her marked each grave. Craved crudely into this one were the words, 'Norton Drake' and a small cross. 

*****

"Do you believe in God, Norton?" 

Norton looked up at her, obviously startled by the question. But he smiled patiently at her curiosity, just as he had months before when she'd asked about his paralysis. The dark brown eyes warmed. 

"Yes, Debi, I do." 

"Why?" she demanded. "Why would He make you... well..." 

He laughed at her embarrassment. "Debi, I can't tell you why He made me this way. But I honestly believe that no matter what a person is like, God put them here for a purpose." 

Before she could ask another question an alarm beeped behind him and Norton turned Gerturde toward it. She knew to leave. 

"Debi," Norton called as she moved to the elevator. "Catch me later and we can talk some more." 

*****

Norton died buying them precious minutes. She liked to think that he had fulfilling his purpose and joined whatever he conceived God to be. 

The weeding finished, she slid around toward the next grave, pushing her silver streaked hair off her cheek. 

"Hi, Mom," she said softly. 

After four years she still felt the loss, the anger, the helplessness of pneumonia in a world without medical facilities. Her mother had been the first of her family to die in her arms. 

Suzanne had tried so hard to make things normal. Or as normal as things could be in hell. 

*****

"Debi!" 

She stopped and turned around. "What?" 

"Isn't Troy meeting you?" Suzanne asked. Troy was the newest leader of the small underground unit. He and Debi had become very close. 

"Yes." 

"Don't you think you'd better change?" 

Debi looked down at the green fatigues and the black cotton shirt. They were clean, the belt was new and the .35 automatic was tucked under her arm. Normal dress for a seventeen year old war veteran. 

"Why?" 

"You could wear a dress." Her mother had sighed. 

She almost snapped out 'why bother' but instead, seeing the intensity in her mother's too old eyes she explained, "Mom, I don't have a dress." 

"Oh." Suzanne looked at her like she had just realized that she would ever need one. She brightened. "Well, come on, I have something for you." 

The surprising excitement was contagious and they walked hand in hand into Suzanne's room. Her mother hauled out a battered, blackened trunk. For a second the calloused hands traced lightly over the scarred lid, sadness etched on her face. 

Debi didn't have to ask, the trunk and a few other pieces had been brought back from the ruins after they had returned to bury their lost friends. Debi had stayed in the van, unable to face the loss again so soon. 

"Debi," her mother called her away from the memories. "See what you can find in here." 

Eagerly she started to rummaged through the box of dresses and memories. Forty minutes later she'd come back into the main room, wearing a black, knee length dress. Her hair was pulled back into a twist and she'd even dabbed on a little makeup. Practicality took precedent in low heeled shoes and the gun now resting in a holster at her waist. 

To Debi's horror her mother's blue eyes flooded with tears. "Mom?" 

"Nothing," Suzanne wiped her eyes. "It's nothing." 

It was more than nothing. It was everything lost, proms and pajama parties, boys and best friends, dances and graduations. Debi hugged her mother tight, shocked to realize that they were the same height. 

"I love you, Mom." 

*****

She had lost her virginity to Troy, a seventeen year old guerilla fighter that died before he made eighteen. 

With a grunt of effort she pushed up, legs stiff from the cross- legged position. To relieve the cramps she walked to where another of her family rested. 

"Ya ta hey," she said firmly in greeting. 

Ironhorse. 

*****

"Debi, close your eyes." 

In that moment, with those words, she knew she would never see Ironhorse alive again. So she kept watching him, felt his strength of spirit, his love for them, his confidence that they would win. He smiled at her, as he always did, with his eyes, letting her know what she faced, what she would have to do. Only at the last did she close her eyes, not for herself, for him. 

*****

A single gunshot had signalled the end of her childhood and innocence, the start of their descent into hell. She killed her first alien at fourteen, her first human at fifteen. 

The scaffold was built on a rise overlooking the other three graves, the soldier still on duty, the warrior still guarding his tribe. Harrison had insisted on the traditional burial, cutting the pines, stretching the canvas that stood in place of a hide, wrapping the body in the black and white blanket, putting the tomahawk in Ironhorse's hand. They hadn't buried the knife. 

*****

"Kincaid! John, lie still," Suzanne commanded. 

"He can't do it alone," Kincaid insisted, wincing as he shifted to get off the cot. 

"John," Harrison said firmly, "you'll only make it worse." 

Kincaid glared at him. "It can't get worse." 

"The hell it can't!" Harrison's temper flared. "You could lose the leg completely." 

"And you could get killed!" Kincaid grabbed at his shattered knee. "I won't let you go alone." Very softly he added, "I let Max go alone." 

"I'll go." 

The other three turned toward her standing in the doorway. She was wearing black fatigues and had her blonde hair tucked under a black cap. 

"Debi..." her mother started. 

"Mom, I've been to every meeting since I was fifteen. I've studied all the colonel's books. And I shoot better than Harrison." 

She firmed her voice. "I'm sixteen. I'm going." 

Suzanne had started to protest but Harrison silenced both the other team members with a single glance. The blue-gray eyes that had at one time held so much laughter and warmth now held only cold determination. 

"She goes." 

"One thing," she had demanded. "I want Ironhorse's knife." 

Harrison didn't ask how she knew they'd recovered it. He went to one of the boxes they'd brought back, walked over and handed her the unsheathed knife. A glance went between the tall scientist and the young woman; they understood each other. 

She put the knife in the side of her boot. 

Her mother had cried. 

*****

From that moment forward she and Kincaid had planned their attacks, coordinated the actions of a rapidly building far-flung resistance force. Those were the lines and the life she'd held for twenty years as Harrison and her mother struggled to find a solution, a way to break the alien hold. 

Bleached bones showed under the tattered remains of the blanket. That was as it should be; the body suspended between the Spirit and the Mother, returning to each. She took the knife in its fringed case off her belt, gently, reached up and laid it next to the shredded blanket. 

"Thank you, Ironhorse, for being there." 

The wind caught an edge of the blanket, flipped it over the knife. 

She walked back to the last grave. The stark white headstone read 'Dr. Harrison Blackwood.' A soft smiled touched her face. When the history books got around to being written she could image how they would word it - "Dr. Blackwood's brilliant gamble, inspired idea." She knew it for what it was - dangerous, insane desperation. 

*****

A stunned silence followed his announcement. 

"Harrison," Debi questioned. "Do you know what you are suggesting?" 

"Yes," he said sadly. "And it's the only thing left." 

"Dear God, Harrison," Suzanne pleaded quietly. "It would kill millions." 

"I know that." His voice was weary, old beyond his years. He had sounded like that for weeks, since the last battle had left most of their unit dead and equipment destroyed. Turning to the small computer they had salvaged, he had said, "According to projections, the aliens, at their present rate, will have wiped out most of humankind within seven years." 

"Seven years," Kincaid repeated in dismay. 

"Are you sure it will work?" Debi questioned Harrison's plan. 

"No," Harrison admitted. "But it is the only disease that has been wiped out since 1953." 

"What's your plan?" Kincaid asked, always the soldier. 

"We can synthesize both the virus and the vaccine," Harrison explained. "According to the computer we have a window of two years before things reach a point of no return." 

Suzanne nodded, understanding. "We vaccinate as many people as we can before then." 

"We distribute the virus and vaccine through the underground," Debi continued the line of thought. 

There was a long silence as they realized that they had agree, that they had no choice. 

"I think," Debi said to break the oppressive silence, "that Ironhorse would have found this plan to be ultimately ironic." 

Harrison's voice was hoarse. "He would also have reminded us that it worked the first time." 

*****

She sighed into the slight wind. Two years later, Harrison Blackwood, a kind and gentle soul, forced through hell and beyond, had given the order to begin 'Operation Indian Blanket.' 

And smallpox had been unleashed on the world again. 

Debi knelt beside the stone, began to pull the weeds. It seemed important that everything be neat when she give them the news. It was silly, she knew, but she had let her feelings lead her before. 

Harrison had not lived to see the effect of their actions. 

*****

"Down!" Harrison's voice screamed over the gun fire. He hit Kincaid from the back even as Debi's machine gun drowned out the single rifle shot. 

Harrison followed Kincaid down, slamming them both hard against the concrete. Kincaid was stunned for a moment, slowly became aware of Harrison's weight on his back. 

"Get off, Harrison, I'm okay," Kincaid said. No answer. "Harrison?" 

Debi was suddenly beside them. "Dear God..." 

She pulled Harrison off the soldier. Kincaid sat up, looked at Harrison's still form. There was a gaping hole in the center of his back. Gently, Kincaid eased Harrison over, laying his head in Debi's lap. Tears were already forming in her eyes. Kincaid slid closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

"Harrison," she whispered. 

Blue eyes, bleached pale in the dim street light, opened, star ing blankly, then focusing on Debi. "Kincaid... okay?" 

A warm, shaky hand took the doctor's cold one. "Thanks, Harrison." 

Harrison shivered in Debi's arms. "Think Paul will give... me hell for getting... careless?" 

"I think," Debi managed to whisper, "that he won't have a chance if Mom gets to you first." Tears ran in hot streams down her face. 

"I wonder...," he said softly, "if the sky... will turn blue again." 

The suddenly fragile body went stiff, grip tightening around Kincaid's hand. "I love you both," Harrison whispered. The blue faded from the expressive eyes and he went limp in Debi's arms. 

Debi pulled the precious body closer, crying harshly. Kincaid slid close, tears on his own cheeks and reverently closed Harrison's eyes. 

*****

At the time her sorrow had been overwhelming. Now, looking back she was almost glad that Harrison had died before the first reports started in, before the first number of humans dead. Even at the end there had been a last remnant of innocence held tight in Harrison's soul, a part that would not have survived the reality of what they had let loose. 

"It's over, Harrison." She stood up, said through a tight lump in her throat, "You were right. You did it." 

"It's taken two years but we're sure." She let her eyes sweep over all the graves, up to the scaffold. "We did it. We won. 

They're gone. All of them. Not even bodies left this time." 

What else was there to say? She smiled through her tears, looking up at the sky. "And Harrison, the sky is the color of your eyes again."


End file.
